New Orleans, as fantastic as it is, simply sucks. It sucks solely because it disappoints me in so many ways. Coming from Ohio, a land of desolate stretches of right-wing bigotry, Rachel and I had set our sights on New Orleans: the birth place of jazz and mardi gras. Here we thought we would jump off a streetcar into the open arms of an enthusiastic LGBT community, scantily clad and wriggling in glitter. I imagined walking through the French Quarter along the street musicians having men flirt with me in Cajun French or some thick New Orlean accent,  strategically licking from my dimples the stray powder sugar from my morning beignet. Aheem. Instead I discovered a place of closed closet doors and people just as ignorant, cowardly, and prejudice as their counterparts in Ohio.

Some might wonder why we didn't just jump on the peace train to San Francisco.  That’s what I had imagined for myself whenever the gay liberation movement picked up pace. I had seen an incredibly bias news piece on a man named Harvey Milk:  an openly gay man in California who was getting involved in politics.  Sifting through the homophobic slander, I found myself literally reaching for the TV screen with trembling fingers. I was to go to California and join his movement. I was willing to be beaten, spit on, and arrested for this man and his cause. So why didn't I go?

 For that I have a very good answer: a boy. Not my boy, mind you, but a boy all the same. Rachel had falling deeply in love with a meteorologist who was following his dreams of working in a Hurricane center down south.  Rachel was my best and only friend after I leapt out of the closet a few years back in Ohio. After building up my outing for years, the whole thing turned into an unplanned, but in retrospect, expected catastrophe. So of course I leapt at the opportunity to move across the country with my best friend.

Unfortunately this so-called “boy” Rachel and I uprooted our lives for ended up being something subhuman. Rachel walked in on him practicing his “Angular momentum gaging” with a fellow meteorologist. This threw Rachel into the longest bout of depression she is capable of (an astounding 4 days.) And with this absence in Rachel’s life, there was an obvious absence of the rent. Thus, the search for a new roommate had commenced.

However, the search has become desperate. Apparently no one wants to life with a young Barbra Streisand and her gay counterpart. At one point Rachel and I even posed as a couple: an event that I catalogued away for those desolate times when I question if this whole “sexual preference” is worth it and if I should just leap on the straight bandwagon. 

So this is why New Orleans has disappointed me: I feel just as isolated and hated here as I did in Ohio. Nevertheless, I made my decision. I am gay, I am out, and I’m not sorry.

----

“Rachel,” I ask, my head resting on her lap. “Do you think I’m gay?”

Rachel gives a simple “mhhm” and continues flipping through the wanted ads.

“No like… you couldn’t mistaken me for being straight, could you?” I try again. “It’s becoming very confusing lately…”

“Your being gay?” Rachel asks over the newspaper. “I thought that was a definite. Has my womanly wiles persuaded you otherwise.”

“Quite the opposite,” I wince. “For the majority of my life I’ve been an actor actively convincing everyone around me that I rather enjoy the females.”

“Hmm,” Rachel returns her newspaper to eyelevel.

“And now that I’ve made the conscious decision to be openly gay, I’m not sure what that entails.”

“I’m assuming it acquires lots of rainbows and drag queens,” Rachel mummers.

“Rachel, I’m being serious,” I sit up and cross my arms. At this Rachel folds her newspaper and mirrors my contorted position mockingly.

“Kurt,” She sighs, softening when she sees the pronounced frown I was sporting.  “You aren’t hiding in the closet anymore.”

“But that’s what this feels like,” I wine, burying my face into my hands.

“Like what feels like?”

“Rachel, how many boyfriends have I have since I’ve come out of the closet. No, how many boyfriends have I had ever?” I say, peaking out of my fingers. “NONE! And it’s not like I’m out scouring the streets for some eligible bachelor. I keep finding myself hanging out with women. Women who keep mistaking me for their knight in shining armor!”

“Well that’s more of a commentary on the status of straight men now and days. Lying, cheating, heart smashing bastards,” Rachel scowls.

“Rachel,” I plead, laying my head back down on her lap.

“Kurt, when you find “the one” you will pursue him,” Rachel says, taking a lock of my hair into her fingers. “You won’t even be able to help it. You’re predisposed to falling hard, Kurt, and I’m afraid you’ll lose all concept of restraint and chase him whole heartedly.”

“You and “the one” speech,” I smile, leaning into her hands.

We sat in a contempt silence for three comfortable minutes until my uncertainty had another appearance.

“So it had nothing to do with me being a coward-”

I was interrupted by a knock at the door that sent Rachel up to her feet faster than her standing ovations.

“We have a new prospect! A maybe-roomie!” Se beams, skipping to the door and pausing with her hand on the handle, turning to me with a mischievous smile. “Maybe this will be the one!”